Haaretz: Senior army officers want to end offensive, but Netanyahu doesn’t

The military analyst for Haaretz newspaper, Amos Harel, said on Wednesday that senior army officers want to end the military offensive against Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t because he is looking for a “clear victory”.

According to Harel, the majority of the political and military leaders in Israel think that the operation in Gaza is coming to an end soon, but neither the politicians nor the army want to carry full responsibility. If no last minute major development occurs, he said, the offensive could end today.

Hamas, he noted, is satisfied with having paralysed most aspects of life in Israel, which had just recovered from the consequences of Covid-19. The movement obliged Israeli citizens to seek shelter, even in the central belt of the country, and has forced the number of flights at Ben Gurion Airport to be cut to a minimum.

Although Israel and Hamas have agreed ceasefires several times in the past mediated by Egypt and sometimes with the help of the UN, on this occasion contacts have not been fruitful. In Israel, therefore, it is thought that a unilateral ceasefire without any agreement would reinforce international legitimacy for Israel’s retaliation against any ceasefire violation by Hamas.

The analyst claimed that Israel does not recognise the harm caused to the state’s reputation within the international community by the intensive bombing of Gaza and the increasing number of civilian casualties. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, it is not good for him personally to end the war without a clear victory, given the political impasse over forming another government and the criminal trial that he faces on corruption charges.

READ: Netanyahu accuses Hamas of seeking escalation, as Israel raids continue on Gaza